In “Fever Pitch,” Barrymore stars as Lindsey, a workaholic who believes she’s finally found Mr. Right. Everything flows along smoothly until baseball season begins. Then Mr. Right turns into a Red Sox fanatic, and Lindsey has to compete with America’s Favorite Pastime.
INTERVIEW WITH DREW BARRYMORE ('Lindsey'):
Could you ever date a sports fan?
Yeah. I mean, sports is a relatively harmless thing to be obsessed with. There are far more negative things. And they’re really out there. I didn’t realize what a true epidemic this is, not just in our country but our world. Reading the Nick Hornby novel, the people from England are just crazy about their soccer. The people in Boston are obsessed with their Red Sox. And we met this Dallas Cowboys fan the other day that was just like…I mean, he was Jimmy [Fallon’s] character. He said the same things that Jimmy’s character says. He had the gift shop atmosphere going on in his house. It’s real, and there are sports widows.
I think it’s really about finding the balance and I think hopefully in the end of our film, we say, “Look, be who you are because if you get into a relationship and you fall in love with someone initially for who they are, the more you take that away, the more they’re going to lose a sense of themselves, and you’re going to lose a sense of who you fell in love with.” It’s about balance and making sure you’re making that person a priority and feeling like number one, but still remembering who you are and getting to be that person at the same time.
Did you enjoy being in Red Sox Nation?
Oh yeah, it was great. We shot it so interestingly. It was really just me and Jimmy and a guy with a handheld camera in the seats. We didn’t want to draw any attention to ourselves for two reasons: one, we didn’t want the crowds around us to be looking weird because if we were just two people there, they wouldn’t be doing that. And also, not to distract the players. We just wanted to do it quietly, if possible. And then when we ran across Fenway, that was during the end of a real game, the real players, the real fans, all 37,000 people of them - and that was just unbelievable.
Shooting at the winning game of the World Series, we were right there on the field. The shot that ends our film is us and you see them in the background. There’s no re-creation and dramatization. We live in that technological world where everything’s so CGI’d and cardboard cutout audiences and that’s just not what happened here. I think you feel that and I hope that that really comes across because that’s exciting to be shooting in the middle of these real games.
Your character’s a workaholic. How often do you take work calls in your down time?
Well, I’m not the best person about calling anybody back. I’m notoriously the worst returner. But when it comes to work, as far as what we need to get done, I’m avid and aggressive about just following through on everything because I’m not the type of person that just sits back and hopes for the best. I think you have to make it happen. So I’m very diligent in my professionalism. I try to maintain my friendships as best as I can, but I’m also a little bit flighty and off in my own world sometimes, too. So a little bit of column A, a little bit of column B.
How was working with the Farrelly Brothers?
I think they have just the best sense of comedy. Some of the films they made are the greatest films in the history of comedy and filmmaking. And yet I think this is an opportunity for them to show their more serious and mature side in that world that was very grounded in reality, such as this story called for. So I think it was exciting to them, and for people who watch the movie, to see them do a different type of film.
They just really got the film that we wanted to make going into it. We all were in agreement when we started shooting so that makes it so much more fun when you’re all on the same page and you’ve done your homework. They wanted to try things and we wanted to try things and we were always open to each other. I just think they’re the greatest, greatest guys, too. I think they’ve just done a really wonderful job at finding the precise tone that each scene and moment needed for this film.
Page 2: Drew Barrymore on Working with Jimmy Fallon, Producing, and the Upcoming Curtis Hanson Project
